Saturday, December 10, 2016

No. There's plenty of ways you can mod rigged/fitmesh items. Stop making them no-mod.

Ok, so there's this trend going around where content creators are making their rigged mesh items no-mod, explaining that since you can't resize or reposition rigged mesh, there's no point to it being mod. We're going to put this misinformation to bed and explain why content creators should not be releasing rigged/fitmesh content as no-mod.

First: Resizing and repositioning are not all there is to modding. They're not even half of what there is to modding. Here's a list of ways you can mod rigged mesh.

Adding scripts

Removing scripts

Retexturing

Tinting the colour

Adding custom materials

Adding custom alpha masks

Changing the objects alpha textures from "blended" to "masked"

Making parts fullbright

Removing fullbright

Linking the object to others so you use fewer attachment points

Unlinking parts to use individually

Renaming

This isn't even a complete list. As you can see, resizing and repositioning barely scratch the surface of what it means for an object to be moddable in Second Life. Every single piece of rigged mesh clothing, every single rigged mesh hairpiece and bodypart I own is modded in some way or another.

Here are some specific examples of how I've personally modded rigged/fitmesh items:

So whenever you hear someone claim "rigged/fitmesh cannot be modified anyway" you set them straight and tell them that's just not true.

Another explanation I've heard for making rigged mesh no-modify is to protect it from content thieves. The problem with that explanation is that making something no-mod offers no protection whatsoever from content theft. None. It's not even an inconvenience. The tools they use to steal content don't care what permissions the content has.

So there you have it. There is no reason to sell rigged/fitmesh content no-mod. None. It provides no benefit to the creator, and it only has downsides for the customer. If you are a content creator who sells no-mod hair, bodies, clothing, I just want you to ask yourself, "Why am I selling these items no mod? Is there a reason, or is it just habit? Am I just doing it because everyone else seems to?"

If you're a customer, I want to encourage you to support those content creators who do release moddable rigged/fitmesh content and I want you to encourage more content creators to do the same.